Blue to Blue

Where ever you go, there You are.

2010-06-19T19:08:09.838-07:00

Where ever you go, there You are.

I would vote for you to keep blogging! Do you crea...

2010-06-12T15:16:48.299-07:00

I would vote for you to keep blogging! Do you create any artwork or poetry on psychiatry. Would be interested to see it if you do.

Regards

Justin

Would love for you, under any name or guise, to co...

2010-06-11T10:43:54.407-07:00

Would love for you, under any name or guise, to continue, but, alas, the decision is yours. Here's to the next stage of the journey!

Pictures set the tone/atmosphere, add dimension, i...

2010-06-11T03:59:34.409-07:00

Pictures set the tone/atmosphere, add dimension, inspire and prevent text fatigue. Not that your text fatigues! Think of it as enhancing a fine reading experience.

Yes, and I think you should do book recommendations, and book-bashing if you feel so inclined.

Hope you decide to write more. For fun, play wi...

2010-06-09T14:49:29.928-07:00

Hope you decide to write more.

For fun, play with the template of this blog. Go to Blogger in Draft and play with some of the three column sample templates. You could insert interesting pictures, lists, all kinds of cool stuff. Gadgets.

Start taking pictures with an eye to illustrating each post. For example, Brainposts always has some really cool nature shot (usually a bird) attached to quite serious neuroscience posts.

I wish you would write more about your profession, and the way that popular culture alternates between vilifying, worshipping, or ignoring it. Plus review various books and trends. I like your discussion of literary works relating them to some universal human dilemma of the type you see so raw in patients.

Or just trash the psychobabble that untrained mainstream journalists and bloggers endlessly produce.

I dunno. Real life is probably more fun, but you have a gift.

I mean, who am I to advise, given how tiny my blog is. And how uninspired I am right now (just exhausted from the busiest time of the year at work, plus the kid still aimless and depressed). But don't give up.

Go to the library looking specifically for something to blog about. Take up a new hobby and write about it.

I'm just selfish, I like reading your stuff...

Yes, there is no celebration of consciousness or o...

2010-06-08T07:16:38.826-07:00

Yes, there is no celebration of consciousness or of Homo sapiens and its dubious works that is not logically circular. "Better never to have been..." Better for whom?

And yes, it's hard to imagine anything more personal or logically incontestable than one's "reason for living" or "meaning of life," clumsy terms that try but fail to capture the persistence of subjectivity. The choice to have children (or not), an extension of that subjectivity, is just about as personal.

When I was in college, I remember an acquaintance ...

2010-06-08T06:26:25.150-07:00

When I was in college, I remember an acquaintance of mine arguing for the use of abortion to prevent pain and misery in children. He said that if his wife were one day to be pregnant with a child with spina bifida, he would urge her to abort it to spare the child a lifetime of misery. Just then, a voice rose from behind him. A wheelchair-bound young college woman with spina bifida politely let him know that her life is a mixture of pain and pleasure and that the pleasure outweighs any pain and disability she experiences.

I tell this story only as a warning against philosophy that requires that we predict the future for others. Those we hope to spare from a dismal future may be more resourseful than us, more resilient than us, and may be able to find joy and happiness in areas we too easily overlook.

Thanks for this very thought-provoking post.

'If a child is likely to have a life full of p...

2010-06-08T02:55:47.824-07:00

'If a child is likely to have a life full of pain and suffering is that a reason against bringing the child into existence?'

Yes. I don't think any moral or religious justification can weigh in to counter this absolute affirmative and still claim to have anything to do with humanity. But what constitutes 'full of pain and suffering'? Is 60% pure suffering and 40% relative happiness/non-suffering a justifiable existence according to this logic?

'If a child is likely to have a happy, healthy life, is that a reason for bringing the child into existence?'

It's a good motivation, but not a sufficient reason (especially if it comes at the expense of someone else's health and happiness)-- It's like reasoning: 'Oh that wine made me so deliriously happy and presumably healthier (antioxidents) therefore I'm justified in drinking another glass'...ummm, not really!

Sentient beings just add ontological variation to the planet. They don't make the world 'better' as such. Just other shades of black really...that will eventually fade into non-existence.

Is a world with no philosophy better than one with? A world without philosophy cannot judge itself to be better; thus even if it is in itself better, it would never know it.

Thanks for your comment, and I see your point. I&...

2010-06-07T15:36:51.716-07:00

Thanks for your comment, and I see your point. I've long thought that the general medical issue most similar to the anxiety and depression that are the heart of psychiatry is chronic pain, which also exists on a continuum ranging from the trivial to the appalling.

It's just difficult to specify (and by implication, to wrest from casual common parlance) phenomena that exist on such a smooth spectrum from clear pathology to arguable normality. "Cancer" is no longer a recondite term, but no one speaks of it casually, because with rare exceptions (otherwise healthy older men with prostate neoplasms perhaps) it is clearly demarcated from the realm of health.

I really enjoy Darkness Visible and have r...

2010-06-07T13:30:34.596-07:00

I really enjoy Darkness Visible and have recommended it to my Abnormal Psychology class. I have also enjoyed Achilles in Vietnam, Odysseus in America , and The Inner World of Trauma . The first two use The Iliad and The Odyssey to illustrate military trauma and the return of the traumatized to society. The last uses Grimm's Fairy Tales to describe Jungian processes involved in traumatization and the preservation of the self.

I'll have to check out some of the titles you have listed. Thanks for putting your list together and for keeping up this fascinating blog.

I actually like some of the generic names. For ex...

2010-06-07T13:02:57.830-07:00

I actually like some of the generic names. For example, I don't particularly like Lamictal, but doesn't lamotrigine sound soothing? Remeron "revs" too much (especially for such a sedating drug), but mirtazepine "purrs" nicely, I think.

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about t...

2010-06-07T12:53:47.264-07:00

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about this one. I am concerned about the dilution of meaning of psychiatric terms as they become more popular among the general public. The most obvious example is the word "depression." The vagueness of this term leads some to inflate the severity of their condition ("I'm not happy, so I must have depression.") while allowing others to minimize the suffering of others ("There's nothing wrong with you...you're just a little depressed."). Unfortunately, some have worsened the problem by trying to make illnesses a badge of honor. Take the parent of an underachieving child. They may hear from some well meaning clinician that children with ADHD are bright, creative, and simply have a different way of learning. They think, "My child is bright. The way he smeared food on his sister was very creative. Obviously he has ADHD." The advantage of a specialized nomenclature would be that the terms we used would have a precise clinical meaning. Still, I think that it is far from certain that we can protect our terms from degradation through popular use. Our field of study is simply too interesting.

On the other hand, having terms that suggest a knowledge that we do not posses is of no help to our patients or to our profession.

Well done! You are so right...:) And I always ...

2010-06-03T04:18:16.042-07:00

Well done! You are so right...:)

And I always loved Karen Horney.

Will link.

Write more, write more.

The difference between a disorder referred to by i...

2010-05-30T01:55:41.223-07:00

The difference between a disorder referred to by its technical name and the same disorder referred to by its cosy colloquial name is that the former is more amenable to pharmaceutical intervention.

Oh, this is hilarious. 'Klonopin, which bring...

2010-05-30T01:46:17.678-07:00

Oh, this is hilarious.

'Klonopin, which brings to my mind some kind of blunt instrument'

Hahaha....I agree! Actually, I'd rather endure the condition than suffer the sound of this curdling name. Also the colour of bile, stodgy in consistency. Yum.

Abilify sounds like something a psychotic-in-training would take. Not suitable for anyone above 5.

Lithium and Seroquel are quite pretty.

Anything starting with X - 70's disco - eg. Xanax ---> Xanadu.

Valium - I think of the car. Not soothing.

Thorazine - jet fuel.

Provigil ----> Progeria...the antithesis of the youthful cognitive sprightliness it's meant to promote.

There's so much in a name.

Very interested to read the Styron (despite Retrie...

2010-05-25T23:07:32.039-07:00

Very interested to read the Styron (despite Retriever's cautionary comments above). Hamlet is one of those plays that I always think that I've read (but haven't, may have seen a movie version). Also interested that Yalom not so much in vogue anymore. I was fascinated with him when I first read his work but found his narcissism a bit grating after a while (as much as I respected his honesty and reflexiveness). And you've convinced me to give Ward Six a read as well.

I agree that psychology's take on human experience is disappointingly limited. And I'm as interested (if not more interested) in literature than psychology.

The answer to your question is blowing in the wind...

2010-05-25T22:59:00.923-07:00

The answer to your question is blowing in the wind. And yes, great song. Dylan would definitely be one of my favourite poets of the 20th century.

I get the impression that psychology formalises th...

2010-05-24T21:49:20.224-07:00

I get the impression that psychology formalises the understanding of the 'meat' of raw existence. It is not the route to the essence of truth and wisdom, but the tidy wrapping that encapsulates the problem of existence enabling it to be grasped, analysed, resolved, and ultimately lived.

Great list! Haven't read 2,7.8 or 9. I was...

2010-05-24T19:06:10.834-07:00

Great list! Haven't read 2,7.8 or 9.

I wasn't a great fan of Styron's book about depression. Tho I thought it a Good Thing that a man describe their struggle with depression (as people are used to women suffering from it, but many men avoid seeking treatment).

I kept thinking that he was only telling half the story. Bipolar rather than unipolar depression, I thought. Just a hunch. My kids tease that I think every creative person is bipolar... Also, he was skittish about facing the alcohol abuse. Many, many bipolar people who self-medicate with alcohol can't be helped by any antidepressant medications until they dry out (and stop using any other drugs).

I am perhaps touchy on the subject, as I have a sib who always tells peole they suffer from depression when the sib is actually ragingly manic most of the time (and thinks themself creative, productive, sexy, and the rest of the world doltish and dreary Puritans by contrast) and only thinks themself ill during the brief bleak intervals of crashing down after prolonged manias.

I thought Sophie's Choice very interesting and horrifying at the same time.

I've often wondered about Styron's illness as fairly typical of many brilliant young writers who have an early great success (Nat Turner) that brings them fame and attention, but not security, and (if anything) exacerbates their mood problems with the expectation that they will produce another and another and another best seller. Not to mention, the party circuit isn't good for anyone's health.

But think of all the writers who sink into alcoholism and/or suicidal gloom.

Of course, there is probably also an element of disease progression too. People often flame out spectacularly in youth, then have a length period of remission and productivitiy, then get much sicker many years later, etc.

Off to read (Doctor X has some cool books listed also, that I think you'd like)

Great song. Tho (from a female perspective) a cau...

2010-05-24T18:48:07.396-07:00

Great song. Tho (from a female perspective) a cautionary tale...

That is a simple yet searching question. I've...

2010-05-24T06:06:52.792-07:00

That is a simple yet searching question. I've never been big on autobiography, perhaps because I get that, in a way, at work. After all, one goes through clinical training for a reason. Beyond all the reading, one prepares best for seeing patients by...seeing lots of patients, hearing their stories, finding out what works and what doesn't.

But while people come to practice psychiatry/psychotherapy by various legitimate routes, mine happened to be via literature (but significantly, not an academic literature department), philosophy, and chemistry.

Literature taught me, among other things, the infinite ambiguity, contingency, and irreducible subjectivity of human experience. To my mind, all great literature is wisdom literature. Philosophy showed me both the wonder and the danger of ideology and foundational questions. Chemistry convinced me of the unseen material sources of seemingly ineffable reality.

Compared to these, psychology per se, whether cognitive or psychoanalytic or whatever, has always seemed to me somewhat anemic in scope, lacking at once the grandeur of literature and the explanatory power of the hard sciences. But as a respected psychologist reminded me, while psychology may not be the only way to approach human nature, or even the best way, it is nonetheless *a* way, and one that does have its necessary place.

But I therefore could have made room on this list for Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind," encountered in undergrad, which criticized the eclipse of traditional philosophical ways of knowing by newer, and arguably narrower, psychological trends.

Which would you consider most influential in deepe...

2010-05-24T03:43:21.880-07:00

Which would you consider most influential in deepening your understanding of the individual psychiatrically afflicted: fiction, autobiographical accounts or clinical texts?

Nice list by the way. I've always wanted to read 'Ward Six'. Will do so now.

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/WardNumb.shtml

"No, I can't see you as a patient/doctor,...

2010-05-18T07:57:31.828-07:00

"No, I can't see you as a patient/doctor, but are you free for dinner and a movie tonight"

Yup.

Yes, it really was one of those Onion/April Fools ...

2010-05-18T07:29:54.129-07:00

Yes, it really was one of those Onion/April Fools Day stories. Can you imagine the boundary issues? Does a 5-minute "consult" (?) establish a patient-physician relationship? I can well imagine a reliable rate of outcomes like: "No, I can't see you as a patient/doctor, but are you free for dinner and a movie tonight?" I can't believe the malpractice insurers (or the ethics scolds like me) would be happy.

"The end is in the beginning and lies far ahe...

2010-05-18T06:38:44.300-07:00

"The end is in the beginning and lies far ahead." -- Ralph Ellison

One of the most frequently denied truths about relationships is that beginnings matter. These relationships begin in a desperate, competitive manner denigrating to physicians, not to mention that the likely unconscious implications of the dating framework are seductive.

Both patient and physician will always know how they started and it will matter.